So just how risky is pate in pregnancy?

[ArchangelGallic]

This is second pregnancy so health advice isn't strange to me. I'm also not risk averse and like to take an informed decision.

Last pregnancy, I was really good and avoided pate until I'd pushed out the Stewie Griffin wannabe. However, I am REALLY craving pate right now. (I'm also craving cold champagne but once you open a bottle, you have to finish it...)

So what are the risks again? Come and tell me what a bad idea smooth meaty pate spread on a slice of fresh crusty bread would be.

On the one hand, listeria is clearly serious - about 20% of listeria cases in pregnancy will result in death of the baby. On the other, the risk is very small - there are usually only between 100 and 200 listeria cases per year in the UK.

Isn't it that you're trying to avoid too much vitamin a rather than listeria?

www.nhs.uk/Conditions/vitamins-minerals/Pages/Vitamin-A.aspx

Would that risk be lessened if I made my own pate?
Not sure how listeria develops.

It's both reasons.

hmm, vitamin A info is a bit vague, isn't it?

Vitamin A info is seriously lacking. I think you'd need to eat far more liver than most people would ever contemplate for it to be a real risk.

I avoid pate for the rather ridiculous reason that I have abandoned virtually every other restriction this time round (one glass of champagne a week) and need something to look forward to after the birth. It's one of those things I don't eat much when not pregnant but really, really want when I am, so it's a massive exercise in delayed gratification.

I just wouldn't risk it. You'll probably be fine. But I would hate for something to happen and it be my fault/I could have prevented it or even if it was nothing to do with me, still feel like if I hadn't done that all would be ok.
I'm in the camp of 'it's only 9 months, it'll be over soon, then I can eat all the pate/cheese etc and drink all the booze I like'.
Sorry to be a debbie downer.

www.nhs.uk/chq/Pages/917.aspx?CategoryID=54#close

Try this link for liver in pregnancy, pate is a risk of listeria however if the pate is liver based you need to avoid it due to the risk of Vit A as well. If you make your own pate and don't make it from liver you should be fine.

The Vitamin A only applies if it's a liver pate right? So generally it's listeria as they advise you avoid veggie pate too.

I'd treat it in the same way as soft cheese like Brie tbh and not fuss if I had it occasionally, or if someone served it at a dinner party for example.

different info available on vitamin A - one study found that over 15,000 IU was teratogenic, others have found no increase in anomalities after 6000 IU and 10 000 IU daily intake.
100 gr of liver pate has about 3300 IU. So unless you go for half a kilo of it, or are eating lots of other vitamin A rich foods already, you should be fine.

Pate not made from liver isn't really pate, is it? It's a terrine. I think I eat terrines anyway.

That's a conceptual issue from one craving the stuff rather than a real desire to get into the ins and outs of mushroom pate by the way.

trouble with listeria is that you can get it from anywhere. Almost all clusters in the UK in the past couple of decades have been from hospital sandwiches or sliced meat, not pate. The last big outbreak in the US was from melons, but we're not told to stop eating fruit and vegetables.

I think a mushroom pate would be ok tbh.

When I was in hospital (with pregnancy related issues) the hospital catering service regularly served it, so I assume it can't be that bigger problem!

My friend got it from boring old ice cream. Not even Mr whippy. Just supermarket own brand.

I don't think one serving of pate (which is quite a lot of butter to liver!) would do any harm in terms of Vit A, not a patch on eating actual liver by itself.

I plan on having one delicious meal of my mum's homemade pate next week :)

Thank you hazlenutt for the info on amounts of vitamin A. I wasn't proposing gorging on it- just wanted a wee taste to stop me bloody thinking about it!

Listeria is one of those things you can pickup all over but hopefully homemade might be less prone. I've done mackerel pate at home but it's not the same. However the risks if I do get it, are quite severe. Hmmm will mull it over.
Thank you for your input everyone.

If you are thinking/worrying about whether it's safe or not, I say don't eat it. I like to take path of least regret (which is different for everyone). Unfortunately I'm a born worrier so my path is very dull :-)

Can I gatecrash very quickly just yo ask what the deal is with rare meat, I could murder a rare fillet steak but baby number 4 is only 20 weeks 'cooked'

I'm not a worrier at all big so need to be convinced logically that something is dangerous.

How rare are you talking? I'd do very very pink. Not sure about bloody and red.....

Very, very pink would do, I just don't want something ^well done

I thought pink meat was fine. Any bacteria will form on the outside exposed to the air/ surfaces so as long as you cook the outside well it's fine. I would also source the meat from a butcher so you get a fresher piece

No, that advice has been changed - meat that has been cooked on outside can still carry toxoplasmosis.
Same risk assessment here - there are not that many toxo cases reported, but most people would be asymptomatic.

If you want to be sure, you can get a blood test to check if you have already had toxo and are therefore immune - it's estimated that about 20-40% of UK population has it.

I've recently read Expecting Better by Emma Oster. It's a great book, she is an economist by trade, who hunted down the actual evidence behind many of the recommendations, so that she could make informed decisions. She read and evaluated the studies (were they "good", ie randomised and large, or poor, ie small scale, correlations rather than causation). In many many things such as caffeine intake, alcohol etc, the evidence suggested the advice was perhaps too cautious. Though naturally it can be hard to find proper studies, there are ethical concerns with many of them. Interestingly, one thing she did concur on was that both Listeria and Toxoplasmosis are real threats, in terms of potential harm to the baby. As has been noted up thread, it can be hard to know where the likely sources are though, so I think you just have to use normal caution and make your own decisions. I am desperate for a rare steak but will just avoid it completely rather than the sacrilege of a dried out pathetic well-done specimen. I'm being much more careful than normal with hygiene and washing veg etc (normally I'm rather gung-ho and have a robust constitution ), but I am eating (lion marked) raw eggs occassionally, in carbonara for example, as the risk there is salmonella which just makes the mother ill rather than impact the baby directly. Personally I don't love Pate enough to take the risk, although I recognise that I'm as likely to get it from a dodgy salad bar.